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This encyclopedia brings together leading scholars to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on African politics ever produced. In over 100 peer-reviewed entries, readers will find authoritative overviews of the key methodologies and approaches, as well as all of the major topics in African politics, one of the fastest growing and most dynamic areas of political science

AbstractThe debate on the 'perils of presidentialism' has been raging for over 30 years and gone through at least three waves. It began with the influential work of Juan Linz and most recently has seen the emergence of a rich literature on coalitional presidentialism, which has demonstrated the capacity of presidents to manage fragmented multi-party legislatures, and hence overcome the dangers of political deadlock. Jean Blondel's last book (African Presidential Republics, Oxford, Routledge, 2019) belongs to this latest wave in the sense that he argues that presidential systems can overcome their limitations, and that certain aspects of the presidential models actually give them an advantage over parliamentary equivalents. This article reviews Blondel's argument against the latest developments in African politics. I suggest that there are fewer instances of positive presidentialism today than Blondel hoped for, in part because democratic progress has often proved to be particularly vulnerable to later autocratization due to a tendency not to entrench gains via constitutional reforms. Despite this cautionary note, however, I conclude that Blondel is right to reject the idea that African cases provide support for the 'perils of presidentialism'. This is not only because Blondel highlights a number of presidents who played a benign or positive role in their country's political development, but also because the coalitional presidentialism literature suggests that there is little evidence that parliamentary systems would perform significantly better.

Barrington Moore's famous line 'no bourgeoisie, no democracy' is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class. Analysis of Afrobarometer survey data reveals that the middle class is more likely to support the opposition and hold pro-democratic attitudes. This suggests Moore's claim holds, at least for some African countries, and that contemporary demographic changes will improve the prospects for democratic consolidation. However, qualitative evidence from the Kenyan 2013 general election raises important questions about the resilience of these attitudes. The middle class may be more inclined to democratic attitudes than their less well-off counterparts, but class continues to intersect with ethnicity and its political salience is likely to wax and wane as a result.